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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

5 worst wipes

Pelides the Delusional Huntertagged me to throw down me five worst wipes. Hmmmm. Truth is, the five worst ones was all back-to-back on Mr. Blackheart the Inciter over in Shadow Lab. But that don't make fer much of a story, so I's come up with some other memorable wipifications.

Number the Five: Faceplant in Shadowfang KeepThis were me first time running an instance. I were over-leveled fer Shadowfang, maybe in me 32nd season or thereabouts, and I were runnin' with a bunch of young belfs, like maybe 18-22. Not knowin' what I were about, I'd gone in with not enough arrows and had run out halfway through. So I were relyin' on aggro pulls - sneak up on the nasty, go "boo!", then let it chase me back to the belfs. So we's workin' our way through the place and we get this point where we wanna go up the stairs to the left, but up above us is one of them Sons of Arugal. He ain't payin' much attention to things, sorta snoozing, so we thinks maybe we can slip by him. I goes first, no problems. Then cames Bashaen me little healer and Ag, who were a decent little pally even though he had the mind of a child. The Son of A is still dozing off up above us. Then comes young Bashella the 'lock - barely into her 18th season - tiptoeing around the corner. Like many low-level adventurers, she gets kinda clumsy in tight spots and forgets howta walk all quiet-like. Sure eough, Wham! she trips over the first stair and lands on her imp. "Oh sure! It's the little guy!" he hollers. Well, of course this wakes up the Arugal kid. He runs off, sounding the alarm. We can hear him tearing around through the walkway above us, waking up all the other SofA's and they's ghost doggies. Pretty soon, he they comes down the stairs, musta been about fifteen of 'em. I fought the good fight, but they swarmed over us and stomped us all pretty dang thoroughly.

Number the Four: Just pick off the sick and weak from the herdWay back when, me and Aelion the cheeky Blood Elf hunter was just a couple of kids, killing stuff in the Barrens for fun and profit. One night we'd hooked up and knocked out a buncha quests, killin' quillboars and silithilithids and dwarf miners and the like. Afters, we's walking back to Camp Taurajo and I's pretty close to levelling up, so we figures we kill some lizards and hyenas, for ta push me over the edge. As we's heading up the road, exterminating the local fauna, this herd of kodos comes by, heading the other direction. These was big nuggerlumpers, big enough that it woulda been hard fer me to take one down on me own, but with a hunter in tow I figures we'll be fine. I'll tag'em one at a time, startin with the sick and elderly ones on the edge of the herd, and we'll take'em down fer some easy experience.

Can ya see where this is heading?

So I pulls out me bow and starts to target the first one. Just as I lets the arrow go, Aelion says "Oh, wait, I'm not sure that's a good -"

twang!

"- idea."

Arrow hits the kodo, which turns and starts towards us. So does the one next to it, and the next one, and the matriarch, and the hole fuhggin' herd. Uh-oh.

Well, we got stomped flatter'n a coupla pancakes, plus a smaller pancake what used to be Aelion's kitty, and had to do the corpse run thing. Fotunately, Aelion didn't hold it against me, chalking it to me being just a simple orc. Although, months later, he did convince me to jump off the edge of the world to see what would happen, so I's ain't entirely sure ...

Number the Three: "How Can You not See the Tank? He's got a Fuhggin Giant Orange Circle on his head???"I was at the inn in Area 52, still lazing in bed while a coupla members of the Goblin Bikini Team fixed me breakfast and tryin' to tune out the Scrybabies and Aldorks bitching at each other downstairs, when I gets a call from Zinzi. "Yo, Ratter, mon! I'm in a group heading over to Shadow Labyrinth but we ain't got a tank. Can you do de job?"

"Well, I think so. But that's a lot tougher than anything I's tanked before ... " (which were true, at the time)

"Good enough for me, mon. Come on down ta Auchindon, okey-dokey?" So down I heads.

Well, we's advancing through the dungeon reasonably well. Ambassador Hellmaw goes down, nice as ya please, and we clears out the trash all the ways to the Misters Blackheart the Inciter. If you ain't familiar with this bugger, he's a two-headed ogre what can mind-control yer whole party and send them running around whacking each other random-like fer a short period of time. He does like every minute, and afters he switches brains and forgets who the most threatening-seeming bugger in yer party was. Means that as the tank, I needs to get all in his face again so's we can get back to the business of killing him. What a friggin' pain for me, 'cause after the "Time for fun!" mind-control party ends, I mights be halfway across the room. Now, if'n everybody'll just hold on a second or five, I'll go catch him and do me threatening thing and then we can slam his ass down.

But that would be too easy.

Soon as the first mind control hilarity ends, the warlock and mage starts blazing away. So of course Big Double-Head starts after them (don't remember which - coulda been either). Said fool tries to run away - buggered if I know where. Not to me, that were for certain. Zinzi wastes mana trying to keep the dumb squishie alive, and it all falls apart and we wipe and gots to do the ghost run back from the graveyard.

We try again. Same dang result.

The rogue what were in charge of this PUG says "Okay. Wait until you see at least three sunders on him before ya starts blasting." Sound strategy. Does they wait? Course not. More wiping ensues.

The rogue be really pissed off now. He does his magic group leader icons over the head trick and suddenly I got me a big orange circle over me head. "You get aggro, you run to the tank, ya friggin idiots" he sez. Okay, so I added the last part, but I's sure he were thinkin' it. Do they run to me when they get aggro? Pfft. I's still having to chase everybody down, trying to get close enough to get in me taunts and sunders.

It weren't til maybe our tenth try before we finally did for the bastard. I suspects what happened were Zinzi gave up on her idealistic "I must keep all my teammates alive" sentimentalities and just let the two casters die. Somewhere in there the rogue got squashed too, but Zin kept me standing and I slowly beat his two-headed arse to the ground, screaming "Who's yer daddy now, beeyatch??!?" the whole time. Course, afters, I were so exhausted I completely fergot to loot the Book of Fel Names. Arrghs.

In hindsight, I realizes there was more tricks I coulda used what would've helped get the aggro back faster. Dance over to berserker mode and intercepts, fer example. But great googly moogly, them finger-wigglers sure didn't need to make that operation so bloody hard.

Number the Two: "Don't Swim in the Lava"A whiles back (before I dinged 70, but pretty close) I were running a young Tauren hunter through Ragefire Chasm down under Orgrimmar. Maybe hopings to get her some loot, but mostly just so she could get a sense of what it look like to be in a dungeon. So I's cruising along, killing everything in sight and making sure nobody goes after the kid. We's almost to the end when Whoops! - I ain't paying attention to where me feet is and I slips into a lava pool.

Oh, bugger.

Okay, don't freak out, just find a way out. But the walls is too steep. Gots to be a way out. You know, I's getting really cooked. Hurries it up. Maybe I can climb out over here. No? Crap, I's dead.

At this point the troggs or cultists or whateverthefuhg it were I'd been beating on before I slip stop jumping up and down at the edge of the pool and charge the poor hunter. And so we wiped. In the easiest dang instance in all Azeroth.

Number the One: "Zinzi glues Ratter's feet to the floor"Tempest Keep. The Mechanar. About as big as big time ever got fer The Purge. We'd stuck our noses in the week before on a whim, killed some trash, got stuck on LegoMeister Capacitus. But this time we was Serious. We had us a Plan. And he were gonna go Down.

The plan were pretty simple. There's a flight of stairs leading down from the entrance part of the Mech down to the factory floor. After clearing all the trash in the area, the group goes back to the stairs, maybe halfways up, and waits. Meanwhiles, the tank (that's me) walks up towards LegoHead and fires a shot at him for to get his attention. Then the tank needs to haul ass back through the factory floor and up the stairs. Then, about a third of the way up, I's supposed to turn and start whacking on RoboBoss, who by this point is on the floor next to the stairs, but be tall enough what we can fight. So he stays on the floor, and his nether bombs ain't smart enough to come up the stairs, so they's all gonna detonate down below us not hurting nobody. Tank'im and spank'im, and easy loots. What could go wrong, right? Pffft.

Starts off fine - everybody's on the stairs, I fires a shot at ChromeDome, he goes "You should split while you can!", and I's running. Sharp turn to the right, still running, sharp turn to the left, up the stairs, another turn to the left to face him and tank his ass, and Whoo-Hooo! Me momentum carries me right off the stairs and back down to the factory floor. They really needs a railing there. Out of Zinzi's line of sight, so no heals, but lots of bombs and a giant pissed-off robot. I goes down fast, then he's up the stairs and smashes everyone else.

Spirit Guide back in Netherstorm pops us back to life, and we mounts up for another go. First time was just practice. I's on the ball now. Right turn, left turn, left turn, and Whoo-Hoo! off the stairs I goes again. Dead tank, dead everyone else. Crap.

So, third time. Zinzi says "Ratter, mon, you's a damn clumsy orc. You just stand on the stairs, mon, right here, and we go send room-temperature Throttle to do de pullin' and de runnin'. Den he come to you and vanish and den you tank. Plus, he dead already, and blonde ta boot, so he not so much a loss if he screw it up." Then she kneels down and pulls out a tube of glue and glues me feet to the stairs, so I cant move nowhere nohow. Wishes I'd'a taken a picture, but no such lucks. Anyhow, everything went withouts a hitch. I stood still, boss comes to me, I tank, they spank, and we loots.

9 comments:

sonvar
said...

I actually like fighting Blackheart the inciter except when I kill the healer though that only happened once. Though I do agree some of the more squishy spellcasters need to be careful and let him face you before they go casting those spells of theirs. Though I think after being stomped on by Kodos I'd change my armor cause with what's all in barrens I'd hate to see what's on their feet.

I'm not sure I could remember my 5 worst wipes. Since I've done PuGs primarily for my nearly 3 years of WoW, I've had too many to count.

I do remember at one point pre-BC (back when i was raiding) we did a guild "for fun" run of Strat. We were all in Tier 1 / Tier 2 and we wiped a few times because we were acting like idiots. It was still a blast, though.